Podcasts & Interviews
The Thriller Writer Lab (Thriller Pitch Podcast) with Mark P.J. Nadon
“Writing a War Your Heroes Don’t Know They’re Losing” — May 12, 2026
The Thriller Writer Lab (Thriller Pitch Podcast) with Mark P.J. Nadon · Season 2, Episode 10 · May 12, 2026 · 1:19:36
Topics: the book pitch, Canadian special forces and JTF2, the peacekeeping myth, my writing process, the human cost of special forces, advice for new authors, and a spoiler section on the ending.
- In Canadian Front, my heroes are winning every single battle and losing the war in the process, because they don’t yet know who they’re fighting.
- If it’s not a capability Canada actually has, it’s not in the book. I spent 23 years as a military intelligence officer, and I work with what’s real.
- The idea of Canada as a nation of peacekeepers is a fallacy. From the Boer War in 1899 onward, we’ve sent soldiers to fight.
- I pride myself on realism, but when reality and the needs of the story collide, the story has to win, or you kill it.
Plot Recon
“Canadian Military Fiction with Michael Lalonde” — February 9, 2026
Plot Recon – Where Thrillers Get Tactical with Evan Graver · Episode 22 · February 9, 2026 · 53:28
Topics: going from intelligence officer to author, writing Canadian military fiction, marketing a book, geopolitics, national security awareness, and North Vanguard Press™.
- Canadian military thrillers aren’t an unpopular genre so much as a genre that barely exists. Most military thrillers are American, with the odd British espionage story.
- As someone whose job was to track threats, I can tell you they are real. We’ve been lucky, and the few people we employ in national security have done outstanding work.
- If you write a book and nobody knows it’s there, it might as well not exist. Marketing isn’t optional.
- Once an intelligence officer, always one. I still read geopolitical news every day, and it shapes what I write.
Direct Action Podcast
“Retired JTF2 assaulter Randy Turner Interviews former intelligence officer, Michael J. Lalonde” — December 7, 2025
Direct Action Podcast (Direct Action Combat, Ottawa) with Randy Turner · December 7, 2025 · 1:33:12
Topics: growing up from Montreal onward, my path into Army intelligence, and why Canada is almost missing from military thrillers.
- American authors write mostly about American units and sometimes the British or other NATO allies, but Canada is almost never mentioned. I wrote the books I couldn’t find.
- I finished my history degree at almost 30, did a master’s right after, and then commissioned as an intelligence officer in the Regular Force.
- I was born in Montreal and lived there until I was nine. My father was a federal police officer with what was then the Ports Canada Police.
- Creating and marketing a book like this in Canada is very difficult and very expensive, so every pre-order and every reader really does help me keep writing.
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